


She Can't Lose Him

by storybycorey



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 10:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15749652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storybycorey/pseuds/storybycorey
Summary: written from the prompts: "I thought I lost you", in the snow, reliefShe doesn’t want to cry—tells herself it wouldn’t be wise because the tears could freeze on her cheeks and it’d be too uncomfortable.  That’s a lie. She doesn’t want to cry because this time she’s truly scared.  She doesn’t want to cry because crying would make this real. She doesn’t want to cry because the last time they froze in each other’s arms without knowing if they’d make it, she promised herself she’d tell him how she feels before it happens again.





	She Can't Lose Him

The window glass is cracked and her teeth chatter.  Doesn’t matter.  She’s not budging.  She curls into a tighter ball and burrows more fully into her jacket.  She’s been shivering at the sill for hours; she’s all but blinded from peering out into the snow.  Anything, anything… but there’s nothing out there but white.

It’s frigid inside the cabin.  She doesn’t even want to imagine what it’s like outs—

Don’t think about it. He’s okay.  He found shelter, found a blanket, a heavier coat, something.

She doesn’t allow herself to think about how absurd it is that he’d find a blanket in the middle of a snowstorm.  

She doesn’t want to cry—tells herself it wouldn’t be wise because the tears could freeze on her cheeks and it’d be too uncomfortable.  That’s a lie. She doesn’t want to cry because this time she’s truly scared.  She doesn’t want to cry because crying would make this real. She doesn’t want to cry because the last time they froze in each other’s arms without knowing if they’d make it, she promised herself she’d tell him how she feels before it happens again.

It’s happening again.

She hasn’t told him how she feels.

She’s stopped herself from barreling through the door and into the blinding snow too many times to count. It would be a death sentence, and she knows it.  He was the one with the warmer coat, the boots, the longer legs, she reminds herself.

Those damn long legs are the last thing she saw of him, disappearing bit by gangly bit into the storm.

He carried her through the snow once with those long gangly legs.

Her chin quivers and this time the tears come.  “He’s fine. He’s okay,” she chokes against the glass.  The stages of hypothermia and frostbite march relentlessly through her head.  He could lose his toes, his fingertips…  She gulps back a sob at the thought of never again feeling his fingertips against the small of her back.  Of never feeling them on—

“Shut up,” she hisses out loud.  He’s fine. He’s FINE.  She lurches from her perch at the window.  Staring out into the void is slowly driving her mad.  She paces the few hundred feet of the cabin until she’s sweating.  If she can keep herself warm enough, then somehow, _somehow_ , maybe he’ll feel that warmth, too.

She can’t lose him.

Each lap brings her back to the window.  One, two, five, ten.  She plays games, tells herself on lap fifteen, she’s allowed to look out again, on lap twenty-two, she’s allowed to pause—just for a minute, just to make sure, make _absolute_ sure, she doesn’t see something out there. The game progresses.  On lap thirty, she’s allowed to think about his eyes, lap thirty-six, his nose, lap forty-four, his lips…  By lap fifty-three, the tears are once again streaming down her cheeks.

She CAN’T lose him.

She collapses back into the seat in front of the window, her panting breaths visible in the cold air. It’s starting to get dark, and she knows then.  She knows:

Just because she _can’t_ lose him doesn’t mean she _won’t_.

She feels weak.  She closes her eyes, squeezes them shut and presses the heels of her palms against them until she sees stars.   Leaning forward, she lays her forehead on the glass and welcomes the icy cold on her skin. She deserves it.  She deserves to be just as cold as he is.  In fact, she needs it.

Rising, she goes to the door and flings it open.  The blast of frigid air knocks her back, but she recovers and keeps going.  She steps into the snow, up past her knees, lets the cold seep its way into her jacket, further beneath her clothes, until it’s worming its icy fingers all the way down to her bones.  She unzips her jacket and tosses it into the snow.  Let her feel it.  Let her feel it, dammit!  Let her take every ounce of this cold into her body and away from him.

It’s hard to breathe. The air is sucked right from her lungs as soon as she opens her mouth.  That doesn’t stop her.  She screams, with every piece of strength she can find, into the void.  “MULDERRRRR!”

Then she does it again. And again. Until her throat aches. She crumbles to her knees and remembers the little match girl, freezing to death with her matches clutched to her palm. She lies there, the image flirting dangerously with her sanity.

She thinks she’s hallucinating when it first appears—a distant black blur in the now-gray flurry of snow.  Climbing to her feet, she peers across the landscape.  The shape grows more distinct, draws closer.  A snowmobile.  “Muld…,” she gasps.  She doesn’t want to hope, but her heart is pounding inside her chest.

Closer, closer, the red of his jacket suddenly becoming clear enough that she has no doubts.  She sobs his name, starts running toward the vehicle.  The engine stops and he stumbles down, ice lacing the fur of his jacket, his eyebrows white above his scarf.

“Mulder, my god,” she says, “You need to get inside.”  She pulls him into the cabin, tugging off his frozen extra layers and brushing the ice from his clothes as well as she can with her own freezing hands. When she’s sure he’s okay, absolutely sure he’s alive and standing before her, she gives in to the emotions, allowing the tears to run down her cheeks as she pulls him close. “Mulder,” she chokes against his chest.

“I’m here,” his voice cracks through shivering lips.  He wraps his arms around her.  But it’s not enough.  She needs to feel his heart beat, needs to know there’s still some warmth that’s been spared by the brutal cold. She rips open his jacket and snakes her arms beneath the down, grips her fingers into the wool of his sweater.  

Warm.  He’s warm in there.

“My god, Mulder, I was so worried.  I thought…,” her voice is muffled as she ducks her head against his chest.  She kisses him there, presses her lips to his heart through wool and skin and bone.  He’s here.  She can’t stop touching him, her hands kneading his back then traveling back to his chest, up to his shoulders, lacing themselves finally around his neck.  She pulls him down and presses a desperate kiss to his ear.  “I thought…,” she chokes, and he grips her harder, his fingers sliding into her hair to cradle her skull.  His fingertips… they’re okay.

“Shh,” he hushes.

“I thought I lost you,” she whispers and kisses him again, this time at his cheekbone.  His skin is cold against her lips, and she threads her fingers through his hair in order to pull him even closer.  “I can’t…”  Another kiss, this one at his jaw, even more desperate.  She murmurs his name as her lips slide across his skin, kisses coming faster and closer together.  She’s powerless to stop them.  There’s a momentum, one that’s been building for hours, for months, for years. There’s a promise she made to herself, during another snow.  There’s Mulder, here, alive, and breathing her name.

Their lips meet first by accident, then again not by accident at all.  They meet on purpose, desperately, frantically, with a heat that belies any amount of cold still left between them.  Again. And again. Tongues and lips and teeth, whimpers and moans—there’s an urgency between them she’s never felt before, one that grows with every touch, every taste.  She realizes she’ll never have enough of him.  She’ll never be satisfied.  She grips the back of his neck and tries anyway.

He breaks away with a gasp, pressing his lips to her forehead, smoothing his fingers through her hair.  “I’m sorry,” she whispers, embarrassed, “I just—“ She tries to pull away, but he holds her there.

“No,” he murmurs.  “Christ, Scully, I’ve wanted… for so long…”  He leans down, cupping her jaw and stroking her cheeks with this thumb.  “But let’s get out of here first.  I brought extra gear for you, and there’s enough fuel to get back into town.  I want…" He looks into her eyes.  “If we’re doing this, Scully, I want to do it right.”

She takes his hand in hers, turning her cheek to press her lips to his palm.  “It’s right, Mulder. You’re here.  It’s right.”  She thinks of Antarctica, holding his limp body to hers on the ice.   She thinks of the little match girl, how close she herself came to succumbing to a similar fate.  

He’s here.  He’s okay.

They make their way back out into the snow.


End file.
